We had a wonderful but long day. We visited two national parks, Zion and Bryce, and drove through Red Canyon. We were gone for eight hours and the pups did fine. We didn’t get back to our campground until 7:30 pm. We’ve never been gone this long on a day trip. Benji got a little antsy when we were about a half hour from our campground. He lets us know when he has had enough. It is very hard to find places to let them out for a walk for several reasons. One, we can never find grass and two, the pavement is too hot for there little paws. Today would be a day where they spent most of the time in the Big Boy Truck.
Our first adventure is Zion National Park. We’ve been to Zion National Park before on our motorcycle. We enjoyed driving through in the Big Boy Truck just as much as we did years ago on our motorcycle.
Digital cameras make it so easy to take hundreds if not thousands of pictures. Remember back in the day when you had to get your film developed. You never knew until you picked up your pictures if they came out okay. I remember once years ago, a whole roll of film from a trip to Jamaica was double exposed. One of my pictures I remember I was parasailing right into a shed. Today, I took so many pictures, it was hard to decide which ones I would display on my blog.
Each and every time we are in the mountains, we have winding roads. Today was no exception. I guess that is to be expected.
Our “America the Beautiful” Lifetime National Park Pass got us into Zion National Park. We were surprised to find out we needed to pay a fee to go through the tunnel at Zion because we had a dually truck and traffic would have to be stopped coming our way. We needed the tunnel to ourselves because we were too wide. I guess the park’s authority felt there were too many accidents due to oversized vehicles.They only accept credit cards at the gate. Compared to some of the vehicles in the park, we were small. People came in with large RVs and travel trailers.
We were told to drive through the center of the two lanes. We were okay height wise, we were just too wide. We love our dually Big Boy Truck, but it is a pain in the butt to park it. We usually need a little over a full parking space.
Although we had been through this tunnel years ago on our motorcycle, I forgot just how long this tunnel was. Just when you see light and an opening, another tunnel starts, a series of three long, dark tunnels.
Coming out the other side of the tunnel, there was a line of cars waiting for us to get through the tunnel. This traffic was stopped just for us. I guess it was worth $15. Hubby chuckled saying they were all probably giving us the middle finger.
Our “America the Beautiful” Lifetime National Park Pass also got us into Bryce Canyon National Park. We saved $70 today using our pass. Bryce Canyon is another hour and a half drive from Zion. Since we were this close, we decided to keep driving and see both parks all in the same day. It would be a long day for us but it made sense to do it this way. If we waited for another day to go to Bryce, the drive would be a little over two hours each way.
We got out of the Big Boy Truck to take pictures more when going through Bryce Canyon. Bryce Canyon is is 132 miles (a little over two hours) from our campground. Zion National Park is only 24 miles (35 minutes) from our campground. Since Bryce Canyon is over two hours away, we won’t be going back and that is why we spent more time taking pictures and stopping at different viewpoints.
The Natural Bridge might have been my favorite thing to see in the whole park. This natural bridge was so cool. We almost missed it. Thankfully there wasn’t traffic on the road so Hubby could back up. Being a Saturday, we were surprised the traffic was minimal. It was almost like we had the park to ourselves.
How cool is this?
Hubby and I took our selfie. We forgot to take one at Zion so we have to go back. Since it is only a half hour from our campground, we planned on going back anyway. Why not? Our America the Beautiful pass gets us free entry and our $15 for having a dually is good for 7 days.
The colors in the canyon are beyond beautiful. They are spectacular. Actually, words cannot describe and pictures will never do it justice.
Red Canyon is an area you drive through just east of the crossroads of Scenic Byway 12 and Scenic Highway 89 and is a part of the Dixie National Forest. If you are driving from Zion to Bryce, you have to go through it. The landscape of Red Canyon is identical to Bryce Canyon, but just not as large. Bryce Canyon is just 12 miles further west of Red Canyon.
The hoodoos of Red Canyon were eroded in similar to those found in Bryce Canyon, by wind and water. Scenic Byway 12 runs through Red Canyon for about four miles.
America O beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain For purple mountain majesties above thy fruited plain America, America, God shed His grace on thee And crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea.
God Bless Everyone. Stay Safe, Be Kind to Every Kind and if you can, see America and all of its beauty from sea to shining sea.
Glamping in my RV 